With NSF grants, the question is whether the President can redistribute funding away from applicants affiliated with specific institutions he doesn’t like (my first approximation: probably).
With USAID, the question is whether the President has the authority to disband an entire Agency established and appropriated by Congress (22 U.S.C. 6563) (my first approximation: probably not).
Point taken. I was mostly addressing the larger question of whether the Executive is breaking the law wrt appropriations. Likely yes.
With science funding grants, the administration likely has latitude to make some changes, but the specifics of that latitude are going to be embedded in a thicket of overlapping statutes of different vintages.
Without going through all the specific statutes, I relied on the suggestion that if they are okay breaking the law around USAID funding passed in March, they likely are not going to find religion and adhere to laws governing science funding. But I guess anything's possible.
With NSF grants, the question is whether the President can redistribute funding away from applicants affiliated with specific institutions he doesn’t like (my first approximation: probably).
With USAID, the question is whether the President has the authority to disband an entire Agency established and appropriated by Congress (22 U.S.C. 6563) (my first approximation: probably not).